Section II: Information and Knowledge Management

Address: Department of Management, School of Business, Economics and Communication, The American University in Cairo, Egypt, 113 Kasr El-Eini Street, Cairo 11511, Egypt

Reference: Science,Technology and Sustainability in the Middle East and North Africa pp. 65 - 79

Abstract/Summary: Emerging information and communication technologies are setting the pace for a changing, competitive and dynamic global community and representing the platform for business and socioeconomic development in the 21st century. Therefore, it is becoming a real-time challenge for developing nations to keep pace with the developments taking place worldwide but also to have equal universal access to its own community in terms of technology literacy and usage for development purposes. Building the infrastructure will not realise quantum leaps in the development process unless it is coupled with concrete projects and activities that engage the community at large with its different segments and groups irrespective of their locations whether urban or remote, gender or background. This paper describes the evolution of the ICT sector in Egypt since the establishment a Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in 1999 while mapping the ICT potentials for socioeconomic development.